Well let me think PD, without trawling through the books I can't give you exact figures, but.....

Steel must have been about £1500
Chains and sprockets , bearings £1200, this could be more?
Hydraulic components about £2500, possibly more?
Plastic stars about £2500

I'm guessing at that a bit, what it cost has long been forgotten

Dad always said it cost us ten grand, so I may be wrong with my guesses, but I can't make up ten grand in bits in my head quite, but the more I think about it the more I think he's not far out?
I think there's over 300 of those stars @ £6 ish each.
Hydraulics weren't cheap as we needed two of everything, as were the bearings and sprockets, obviously needed twice as much as a smaller bucket that was only driven from one side, but I don't think the shafts would stick running at that width, without a center bearing, then you've still got the torque to contend with on start up, that's why we went for twin drive and independent sides.

It took me about 3 weeks from memory, from a sketch on paper to using it on the first job, got a bit silly towards the end, long hours and 7 days! Had a bit of help from the lad we had with us at the time, so I can't say I did every inch, but the poor lad wasn't blessed with mechanical skills, and working with steel was not his forte, he cut a lot of the steel stock, drilled holes, ground up edges, milled key ways ect, but I had to mark everything out and set the mill up ect, seemed like hard work at times, but he did help. All the plate cutting and fabbing was done by me, and the design, most of which was in my head, bit of planning out at the start, but once I got going I sort of made it up as I went.